


Starlights

by Mosscity



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Breakups, Gen, It may be in snufkins POV for the first chapter but this isnt rlly abt him, No Beta read we die like men, Slow to update (probably), everyone is so stupid. God bless, ill add n edit tags as i go along, moomintroll and snorkmaiden are gay btw, snufmin is also here but if you click on this work for snufmin youll be disappointed, this is most likely idiot plot, this is my first time writing fanfic or using this website so advice is welcome!!!, uuhhhh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 06:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19245841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosscity/pseuds/Mosscity
Summary: Moomintroll and Snorkmaiden break up. Nonsense (in Snufkin’s eyes) transpires.





	Starlights

Snufkin digs his tailbone into a tree, absolutely miffed, his leathery rucksack propped next to him. The tree is one of the many pear ones of Moominvalley, and some of the putrid fruit has already tumbled to the ground, now infested with maggots and a myriad of other unidentifiable crawly’s. He puffs his wood pipe angrily and stares off into the distance. It’s hard to decipher much through the heavy smoke from his herbal hodgepodge and the apparitions of heat dancing across the valley, but Snufkin appreciates it: it’s something to focus on while he broods.

  
He hates it when he gets like this, when he feels obligated to create. He has the impulse to look at his rucksack, and so he does—he isn’t one to deny himself of what he wants, after all—and immediately regrets it. The mouth-organ shoved to the bottom taunts him, and he can practically feel the gleam of metal sweat and shimmer, begging to be taken out and polished, knocked twice on his palm, and played.

  
‘Oh, won’t you just blow a few notes, Snuf Snuf? Make a jig for your friend to shimmy to; he’s been so down without your usual summer tune. It’ll only take a little effort to work out the song, wrestle it down and trap it in between yours lips before-‘

  
“Ugh!” Snufkin huffs exasperatedly into his pipe, and coughs at the plume of raspberry and tobacco dust that blasts out in retaliation. After a few more tear wrenching hacks, he dumps his pipes contents into the desiccated dirt and sighs.

  
He really doesn’t feel like playing, and he hasn’t for a while. There’s no need to panic at this apathy, of course; Inspiration comes and goes as she pleases and he knows that, eventually, she’ll return to him. Though it’s abnormal to not have her with him during the summer months, Snufkin isn’t one to fret over frivolous matters such as routine. So he really shouldn’t be bothered. A Snufkin shouldn’t be bothered when he doesn’t want to do something, and a tune shouldn’t be sought out when it doesn’t want to be found. He knows this.

  
“Then why,” Snufkin murmurs toothily through the pipe in his mouth, “do I feel so guilty for it?”

  
Snufkin’s hat rides up from his head as he reclines against the tree trunk, and regrets dumping his bag. He’d only just started to smoke it, and he had had about an hour or two left of toke to spare. It certainly would have pacified the thoughts in his head. Damned vehemence, muddling his motor skills and making him seem a sap.

  
He’d just found himself deeply captivated by a wriggling concentration of worms in an especially populated pear when a familiar white figure trudges up from the hillside, gripping a pitiful wad of flowers in his left paw. Enthusiastic to finally have a sufficient distraction, Snufkin calls out, “Moomintroll! Sit with me!”

  
Moomintroll, seemingly just noticing the tramp, jerks his head up in surprise. A few loose leaves detach from the stalks and flutter about frantically.

  
“Snufkin!” Moomintroll recovers from his prior discontent, a smile finding his lips as he strides towards his friend, flopping down next to him. They look at each other fondly for a moment, both of their tribulations temporarily forgotten.

  
They sit in the pleasant silence briefly, simply enjoying each other’s male companionship. The buzzing of buggies and mild brush of grass against bum is enough noise for a half an hour or so.

  
However, Snufkin, the eagerly avoidant scoundrel he is, jumps to bring up Moomintroll’s own headache. It’s certainly favorable to thinking of his own. And besides, Moomintroll’s sullen mien still hadn’t dispersed, and what better way to comfort someone than bring up the fountainhead of their unhappiness? Not that Snufkin would take his own advice, of course of course.

  
“Who are the flowers for?”

  
Moomintroll sighs dejectedly, and stares holes into the sorry nosegay. Snufkin does too. It seems to be composed of various weeds and flowers of the valley. He recognizes field bindweed, dandelion, saxifrage—all beautiful in their own right, of course, but if someone wants a bouquet they likely want one of more extravagant caliber. Snufkin is dimly reminded of the crested cow-wheat he found on his stroll that day, when the morning dew had yet to dissipate. He would have to show it to Moomintroll later.

  
“It’s for Snorkmaiden,” Moomintroll mumbles, “But I can’t find any good ones! Nothings growing in this heat,” and sighs, “and I was going to give her this as an apology for, uh, forgetting we had a date last night.”

  
Snufkin snorts, incredulous. “Really!” He brings his right knee up and rests his chin on it, peering at Moomintroll with an impish simper. “Last time I checked, it was all you could prattle on about yesterday.”

  
Moomin started, his tail lashing about in embarrassment as he went beet red under his velvet fur. “W-well!” He stammers some incoherent nonsense in defense, before relenting. He fingers a few brittle daisy petals, refusing to look Snufkin in the eyes. “She spoke of sensual things.”

  
Snufkin tilts his head, utterly perplexed. His hat nods in tandem. He refuses to think about the bodily anatomy of moomins and snorks—it disoriented him thoroughly, and ignorance isn’t something a Snufkin admits to being burdened with—but Moomintroll and Snorkmaiden aren’t children, and they’ve certainly been together long enough to be sexually active. What’s Moomin getting so distraught over?

  
“I don’t think I quite understand. Are you embarrassed?”

  
“No!” Moomintroll plucked the petals of the floral patsy clean off, and began to crinkle the leaves on its stem.

  
“Then why are you acting so standoffish?” He leaned into the trolls personal space with inquiry.

  
“What’s it to you?”

  
“You‘re the one that’s been sulking all afternoon, it’s hard for someone not to notice,” Snufkin retorts heatedly.

  
Snufkin then realizes that they’re having an argument. He doesn’t know why—whatever they’re bickering about certainly isn’t worthy of their time. Maybe it’s just misdirected aggression. He again wishes he hadn’t jettisoned his pipe, feeling the tip granulate between his crooked teeth.

  
Moomintroll and Snufkin glare at each other for a time before the former surrenders, exhaling in defeat and resting his snout to his chest. The atmosphere thickens, though with what Snufkin doesn’t know.

  
“...Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

  
Snufkin draws an x across his chest with his left hand, and raises his right. “Cross my heart.”

  
“I don’t know if I like Snorkmadien,” Moomintroll respires.

  
Oh.

  
“In the way I should, I mean,” he confesses. Moomintroll refuses to look at anything but his bouquet.

  
Though Snufkin, of course of course, loves his friend dearly, he really wishes he could have talked to Moominmamma about this instead. Moomintroll knows that Snufkin’s inept in particulars such as relationships and social etiquette, especially those involving romance. How is he supposed to respond to this? On such short notice too. Snufkin reckoned that Moomintroll was just moping about the weather, or some petty thing Little My had said to him that hurt his pride, rather than his love life. Luckily, Moomin doesn’t wait for Snufkin to respond.

  
“I-I’ve tried to love her that way, and think about her the way I should, but it just never feels right, you know? A-and I can tell she’s getting impatient, and just last week she was wondering about whether our children will be bald or have a fringe, and I couldn’t say anything back because she wants kids! That should be great news! But I couldn’t help but feel terrified and trapped and oh so alone, and then she avoided me for the rest of the day, so I put a flower in her ear afterwards and said that all of our kids would have fringes so she’d forgive me, and she did, and she gave me a kiss, and I’m supposed to feel giddy and lovesick and happy about that, right?

  
“B-but... all I fe-feel is just...” Moomintroll’s lips quiver pathetically, and his red eyes—when had that happened?—are suddenly filled with tears. “Oh, Snufkin!” He wails dramatically before burying his head in his chest, arms pulled tight round his snout, his bouquet certainly ruined from being crushed between his sharp knee and heavy forearm. Snufkin gawks at Moomintroll in stupefaction before coming to his senses and rushing to soothe his friend. Now Snufkin _really_ wishes he hadn’t dumped his pipe.

  
“Moomin, Moomin! It’s alright! Don’t cry, please,” Snufkin begs. He waves his paws about erratically, wondering at where to put them. Wrap an arm around him? Rub his bicep (did moomins have biceps)? He opted for some awkward pats on the shoulder. It obviously wasn’t enough to assuage Moomintroll, and he sobbed only louder. The desperate hitching of his breath and shaking of Moomintroll’s large, large presence, much too overbearing for Snufkin to ever hug properly, swam predatorily under Snufkin’s clenched eyelids. It was all too much.

  
“Howsabout we trek on over to my camp and I play you a tune on my banjo?” He blurts out. “That’ll clear your head, that’s for certain.”

  
And the Snufkin swivels around, picks up his rucksack, and marches off towards the minuscule sight of his tent. Snufkin doesn’t look back to make sure Moomintroll is following him, hoping in sub rosa that Moomin will simply stay there. So he doesn’t have to hear his snuffling any more, and feel obligated to comfort him.

  
Alas, he hears Moomintroll stand up behind him, and they walk off towards his bivouac. At least Moomintroll has stopped sobbing, with Snufkin only able to hear a few wretched sniffles and the familiar brush of fur against fur between the trolls paws. He must be mortified.

  
Once they’ve arrived, Snufkin gets on his hands and knees, peering through the tarpaulin flaps, and while rummaging for his banjo breathes in the stuffy, sweaty smell of his abode. His tent will be the only confined space he’ll ever find solace being cooped up in, Snufkin’s sure of it. The shuffling of Moomintroll’s gauche feet against the muddy ground is the one thing keeping him from bolting into his tent and hiding there until the sun sets. Snufkin exclaims when he finds the instrument, sitting back on his haunches in accomplishment. Resting adjacent a rotting oak log, he grips his banjo and strums it idly, tuning any stale strings.

  
Playing the banjo, or guitar, or accordion, or flute, or any sort of instrument, really (Snufkin was quite the talented musician), had always been astronomically different to playing his harmonica. Those instruments were played simply for the joy of playing, among friends or alone. The songs weren’t his, but the memories collected while he performed were.

  
His mouth-organ, on the other hand, was for himself and himself only, and recited stories rather than created them. Finding the song, keeping it firm, and playing it was a delicate process that he took great care to keep intimate. This is what he thought while playing for Moomintroll, and this is what he thought when he said:

  
“If I were you, I’d break it off with her.”

  
Another strum of the banjo, crisp and clear in the heavy afternoon air, is interrupted by Moomintroll’s gasp of dismay, voice abhorrently thick.

  
“That’s ridiculous!”

  
“You brought this on yourself when you said you didn’t love her. If being with her displeases you, and you can’t give her what she wants, then there’s no reason to continue dating her. You’re just holding each other back.” Snufkin shrugs, plucking a few notes out meticulously.

  
“B-but what if she hates me for it, and we never talk again? How am I supposed to tell Mamma and Pappa?”

  
Snufkin pauses his tune to stare dryly at his sorry-ass schmuck of a best friend, resisting the urge to seep annoyance into his response.

“I don’t know, Moomintroll. You’ll find out if you break up with her, I suppose.” and then he carry’s on.

  
Really, what an absurd notion, asking for counsel on the future. It’s better to answer the questions yourself, rather than cower in fear at a hypothetical catastrophe caused by your hypothetical actions. Not that Snufkin would take his own advice, of course of course.

  
He plays a still winding, boring air for the still anguished Moomintroll for nary a minute or so more.

  
Then, suddenly, for scarcely a moment, Moomintroll’s shuddery breath synchronizes with the trills of a nearby avifauna. The wind flutters between the summer leaves, clacking against each other like wind chimes. Snufkin gasps quietly, his whole body suddenly tense with rapture. His banjo falls from his hands. He scurries to his rucksack, wrenching it open and digging through to the bottom til he can feel the smooth metal of his harmonica, and practically melts with jubilation when he pulls it out.

  
‘Now is the time’, he thinks, knocking the mouth-organ on his palm in twain, lifting it to his chapped lips, and blowing softly. She had arrived.

  
Moomintroll only just listens, his thoughts miles away.

**Author's Note:**

> theres no AC rn and im angry (face gets all red and i start swinging my fists around oooh man im so mad).  
> anyways i live off flattery so commentary is welcome and encouraged *blushes emoji*  
> my tumblr is sunnyfungi


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